Another way to look at “mistakes.”

Sitting by myself in the empty house waiting for the moving trucks to arrive I had a realization. “I don’t want to live here.” At the time I though it was stress, leaving a home I adored, the hassle of moving, etc.

But the feeling stayed. Not always on the surface but it was there. Three years later we moved again — into a house that was more “us.”

People ask if I thought moving there in the first place was a mistake.

Not once.

That house was the one I dreamed about owning. A grown-up, new-ish home in a Beaver Cleaver neighborhood complete with something pretty close to a picket fence. It wasn’t until I actually had it that I realized it wasn’t what I wanted at all. (Husband felt the same. Whew.)

If I’d never achieved owning it I never would have known. I would have spent more time longing for something I didn’t have but thought would make me happy. It turned out just right.

Is there something like that in your life? You want it, don’t have it, and believe you’ll be happier when you get it? It doesn’t have to be something you own. It can be something you wish you were.

Do you wish you were more structured or organized? More into exercise? A better cook or gardener?

If so I suggest you put your all into achieving it for a few months. (About the same amount of time it takes to sell and buy a house and move.) Once you’ve achieved a certain level of success, step back and see if it’s all it was cracked up to be. Are you as happy as you thought you’d be?

If so, terrific. Keep going. If not, maybe it’s time to rethink whether this is that important to you after all. And maybe even let it go. Working to achieve something you end up not wanting after all isn’t a mistake, it’s experience.